


I'm Not Cut Out for This

by DaftPunk_DeLorean



Series: Unadulterated Sadness and Angst [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Drabble that got out of hand, Gen, Hurt Clint, Natasha Feels, Steve Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 06:08:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1733921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaftPunk_DeLorean/pseuds/DaftPunk_DeLorean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Clint… Clinton Francis Barton…” she choked out softly. “You promised me… <em>You promised me!”</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Not Cut Out for This

**Author's Note:**

> Originally a tumblr angst drabble for the prompt "I'm not cut out for this, Clint and Natasha," that got out of hand.

Clint had been in deep cover; deep enough that Natasha thought he’d be able to get out of the field and into safety when she pulled the plug on SHIELD. She didn’t hear word from him in a week and a half, which she counted as good news; they were all laying low now, crafting new identities and new covers, reevaluating old colleagues and older friendships. So when she heard a text come in on her new, untraceable, pre-paid phone, she frowned at it like it was a grenade for a full minute before checking it.

_Nat, we need to get together. Are you still in the area?_

She rolled her eyes, exasperated. 

_Jesus, Steve. Have you no concept of the definition of laying low?_

_Nat, I’m serious. It’s about Clint._

She didn’t hesitate another moment, and within the hour, Steve was holding her back from rushing the third-shift attendant at the seediest public morgue in DC. 

“I said _let me see him!”_ she screamed, in a display of barely-controlled panic that he’d never seen from her. Natasha was calm. Placid. Even when she thought Fury was dead, she shed a few tears and bit out a few angry words, but her veil of control quickly enveloped her. 

But _this._

She yanked her arm out of Steve’s grip, shoving the heel of her palm into his solar plexus. When he gasped for air, she spun out of his reach and had a handgun pressed to the morgue attendant’s forehead hard enough to leave a mark. 

“Let me see him,” she growled.

The attendant held up his hands and looked like he was about to shit himself, but blubbered as he fumbled with his keys.

“Jesus lady, ok! Just- don’t fucking shoot, okay? I support my gram with this job! Don’t know what you think you’re going to see, his whole head is ground chuck!”

Steve could have strangled him for that, and when Natasha kneed him in the groin, Steve didn’t stop her. After he bitched appropriately, the attendant led them warily through the corridors, his eyes on the gun still gripped tightly in Nat’s trembling hand. Steve rested a hand on her lower back, and she shrugged away with a venomous look. 

“Don’t fucking patronize me,” she hissed. She didn’t holster the gun until they entered one of the cold storage chambers, and she followed the attendant to a drawer, where he checked a tag, pulled it open, then cowered away from them. 

They stared in silence for a long time, looking at the outline of the body covered in a sheet. Natasha finally took a tentative step forward, and Steve grabbed her upper arm. 

“Nat. Don’t do this, it won’t make this any easier,” he said quietly, his own voice already thick. She didn’t look at Steve.

“I have to. I at least owe him that much…” she whispered. 

Another step. Then another. She reached for the sheet, pausing and clenching her fists about halfway there, before taking a shaky breath and peeling it back.

They both inhaled sharply.

It never got any easier, Steve thought bitterly, remembering soldiers in the trenches, carried back to base with their guts dragging behind the gurney and their brains collected in a dirty handkerchief, so the Army could try to send back all of them to their mourning mommas back home with a telegram and a folded flag. Steve swallowed hard, looking at the pulpy crater that used to be the left side of Clint’s head. He choked when he saw that the right side of his face was pulled up in a smirk; he’d gone down fighting.

Natasha stared impassively, her face unreadable, until her eyes started streaming with tears. Steve stepped towards her cautiously, but jumped, startled, when she made an abrupt choking sound, pressing both hands over her mouth as her face crumpled, eyes as red as blood.

“Nat…” Steve whispered hoarsely, and she shook her head jerkily, reaching a hand out to twist the sheet in her fist, her small frame shaking with grief. 

“Clint… Clinton Francis Barton…” she choked out softly. “You promised me… _You promised me!”_ She pounded her fist down on Clint’s chest, and it made a sickening, hollow sound. A wet sob escaped her throat, and Steve rushed to her side, as her shaking fingers hovered over the gore that used to be Clint’s head. 

“C’mon, you don’t-“ Steve murmured, but was cut off.

“He was in cover- he- I blew his cover… he was ambushed… I- Steve, I did this to him- _I killed him!”_ Natasha doubled over in hysterics, and Steve wrapped his arms around her, holding her up. 

“No, stop that! You- he knew what he was doing, okay? Sometimes it just doesn’t go right, trust me! You can’t take the blame for every death you see in battle; you’ll drive yourself insane! _Ask me how I know!”_ Steve shouted desperately, and with surprising strength, Natasha shoved him off. 

“Well the next time you send the enemy the exact location, cover, and details of the person you care about more than anyone else in the world tied up in a pretty little self-serving bow and they come back to you like _this-“_ she gestured sharply at Clint’s body, “ _-then_ we’ll talk,” she spat out venomously, her expression shattered and her eyes hollow.

Steve said nothing.

Natasha turned back to Clint and cried silent tears for a long time, before she kissed her fingertips, and pressed them to Clint’s cold, blood-flecked lips.

“Спокойной ночи, мой маленький птица…" she whispered, then without another glance at Clint, Steve, or the wide-eyed attendant, she turned and walked stiffly from the room, her hands clenched in fists by her side. Steve stared after her, and he felt utterly gutted. He rested his hand on Clint’s shoulder and hesitated.

“Clint…” he whispered, rubbing his thumb in a small circle against Clint’s cool flesh, as if Steve could soothe him with the calming motion. “I don’t- I’m so sorry, I wish- I wish I could have been there, I wish I could have pulled you out…” Steve stopped, his throat getting tight. He had been fighting his own demons, his own past. “You just… you deserved better than this. You were a hero, an Avenger… and we took that from you, and-“

Steve made a broken noise in his throat, and put his hand over his eyes, his face crumbling. “I don’t know what to do, you had so much experience, and you and Nat were always the two I never had to worry about, and- she’s all alone now, and I don’t know how to- Jesus, Clint, I’m just a fucking _kid,_ I don’t know why everyone thinks I can do this, I’m not cut out for this! I went into the ice thinking all I did was watch people get killed and…”

Steve took a great shuddering breath, scrubbing at his eyes with his sleeve, and he felt so, so small.

“…and that’s all I’ve been doing ever since I woke up…” he breathed.

Steve gently pulled the sheet up over Clint’s head, and said goodbye to his teammate, his comrade, his _friend_ , one last time, before turning sharply and walking back out to the car without another word, where Natasha would be waiting in cool, composed silence. Since SHIELD fell and they had next to no jurisdiction and were wanted as criminals, they would be lucky if they could get the body released. But Steve would do his damnedest. He slid into the car, and just as he thought, Nat’s mask was firmly in place. 

“Nat-“ he started.

“Don’t.”

Steve nodded at his lap, and neither of them looked back at the morgue as Natasha sped away.

**Author's Note:**

> Russian translation: “Good night, my little bird…”


End file.
